Welcome plunge in homicides

Police and their law enforcement allies have dramatically reduced Stockton's raging murder rate, at least for the time being. How did they do it?

Michael Fitzgerald

Police and their law enforcement allies have dramatically reduced Stockton's raging murder rate, at least for the time being. How did they do it?

The police's three-month partnership with the California Highway Patrol just ended. During that time the city's careening murder rate dropped to ... well, zero, so far this year.

So before we go further, sincere thanks to the CHP.

The CHP's assistance is not the only reason murders declined. The cause dates back to early 2012. At that point, decimated by staff cuts, police had retreated into a posture of responding to calls, while launching no aggressive missions.

Crime rose in all categories.

Then they launched "real-time policing." When crime occurred in bad neighborhoods 10 officers would flood in and target violent criminals and gangsters.

It worked. So in June Police Chief Eric Jones asked the council to fund a Community Response Team. Two 11-member units digest crime analysis reports and intel on where the gangs, violent guys, probationers and parolees are. They go after them.

Simultaneously, other agencies formed a countywide gang task force. These agencies - and others, working on the down-low, I suspect - collaborate.

A bar graph would show homicide taking a steep plunge from October to the present. January to date would show no bar at all - unthinkable several months ago.

The main ingredient here might be the mid-summer takedown of two warring Norteņo clans. This feud accounted for a sizable number of the city's homicides.

Other violent crime, on the other hand, increased 11.4 percent - until the period of November/December, when cops hammered it down by 4.5 percent - likely evidence their strategy is working.

For people interested in the gun control debate, "We took nearly 1,000 guns off the street last year," said police spokesman Officer Joe Silva.

"Our view," Silva said, "is that when we get these guns off the street we're preventing some type of crime from happening - whether it's an armed robbery, shooting or a homicide."

These guns included illegal semi-automatic weapons such as AK-47s, some of which were linked to killings and shootings.

So, multiagency collaborations and aggressive police missions dented violent crime. This period can be seen as an intelligently improvised bridge across the crime wave that started with police cuts and the roll-out of the Marshall Plan coming Feb. 8.

Of course, some part of Stockton's homicide lull could be just good luck.

But the foundation is good police work.

Another police novelty bore fruit: social media. The police's Facebook page and Twitter feed allow visitors to click on a box to send tips, even (for the Instagram generation) to upload pictures of culprits, suspicious characters or vehicles, or problem houses.

Of 368 tips received through social media, some enabled police to march out and arrest suspects on weapons charges, drugs and robbery.